Cisco comes out against net-neutrality

Cisco has come out against net-neutrality saying that not all bits are born the same and 99 per cent of data will benefit by being ruled by one percent of data.

In a statement Cisco said that that bits running over the Internet are not equal and should not be treated that way by broadband providers, despite net neutrality advocates' calls for traffic neutral regulations.

We guess it sees that the benefits that the one percent of special data will trickle down to the rest of the Internet.

Cisco predicted in its Visual Networking Index Global Forecast and Service Adoption, released Tuesday that a huge number of Internet-connected devices with a wide variety of traffic requirements, including billions of machine-to-machine connections, will come online over the next four years.

Jeff Campbell, Cisco's vice president for government and community relations said that some Web-based applications, including rapidly growing video services, home health monitoring and public safety apps, will demand priority access to the network, while others, like most Web browsing and email, may live with slight delays.

"We really have a multiplicity of applications and services that are now running across the network, some of which require dramatically different treatment than others," he said.

Cisco has long called on the FCC to allow broadband providers to manage their traffic saying that it is important that the FCC ensure an open Internet, but it's also important that "we have a robust network," Campbell said.

The FCC should allow broadband providers to maintain quality of service "to ensure that some applications will run properly and effectively on the Internet," Campbell said. "That means using the intelligence of the network to ensure that those bits receive the quality of service they need."